Yes. Information about government business is increasingly located in social media applications. If this information is needed by your organisation to help perform, improve or report on its operations, or to provide evidence of advice given, then you will need information management strategies to support your social media activities.

However, you do not need to make and keep records of all of your organisation’s social media activities. Social media is a delivery channel for business and decisions to keep information should be based on your organisation’s business needs for particular information. Some general communications and information activities have short-term applications. A basic rule of thumb to apply to information in social media applications is: If you need it, manage it. If you don't need it, leave it.

For further advice see our Strategies for managing social media information.

No. An EDRMS (electronic document and records management system) is one type of system that organisations can use to manage their records. If implemented well, an EDRMS can protect and manage records as authentic evidence of business to meet your organisation’s statutory and other responsibilities, and can assist you to address your organisation’s longer term needs for information. For further information about EDRMS, see our FAQs about EDRMS.

However, your organisation might prefer to manage records and information with short term retention periods in relevant business systems. For example, many organisations scan invoices directly to their finance systems. Most finance systems are well designed with strong audit, reporting and accountability capacities, and may be capable of maintaining this information for as long as it is required for legal and audit purposes. For further advice see our Future Proof blog.

No - if Councils have decided that electronic versions of the Minutes of Council meet their business needs there is no need to print out and bind the Minutes.

No - we provide Excel and XML versions of some of our general authorities, but we do not sell or provide versions for loading into TRIM, Objective etc.

NSW State Archives and Records only regulates recordkeeping for NSW State government agencies, State owned corporations, universities, local government and the public health sector. We have no power to regulate how long records created by individuals and private organisations should be kept. We can provide general guidance but there is no one source that gives this sort of advice. Some useful sources are the Australian Taxation Office and the Fair Work Ombudsman (for recordkeeping around employees).

No. NSW State Archives and Records does not regulate or approve business classification schemes.

NSW State Archives and Records recommends agencies develop and use a BCS to assist the management of records and information within the organisation. The decision to develop and use a BCS, and determining the hierarchical structure and terminology of a business classification scheme or taxonomy, are up to the agency.

For further advice see Records classification.

No. It is not necessary to implement a one-to-one relationship between the structure and terminology of an agency’s BCS and the structure and terminology used in a functional retention and disposal authority.

Your agency needs to create an implementation plan to map its BCS terminology to the relevant corresponding function and activity terms used in the functional authority.

Imposing strict one-to-one hierarchical links from a retention and disposal authority to structure a classification scheme (and vice versa) can complicate its usage by making it long and cumbersome for users to navigate (e.g. by repetitively reproducing similar classes with the same retention and disposal outcome under every activity term).

To assist in streamlining a functional authority and making it easier for users to understand and interpret, it may be beneficial to consider combining terms in the authority in instances where the analysis of recordkeeping requirements has identified similar or equivalent retention and disposal outcomes for the same activities. 

State Archives and Records does not create implementation plans for agencies. 

No. An agency may review and update its BCS to reflect more current terminology:

• This does not necessarily mean that the agency needs to update and resubmit its functional retention and disposal authority to NSW State Archives and Records for approval.
• If the agency has updated its BCS to reflect current terminology but the nature of the functions and activities carried out by the organisation haven’t fundamentally changed, then the agency does not need to update and resubmit the functional authority for approval.

You may need to update your functional authority if, in the process of revising and updating the BCS you have identified that the organisation’s functions and activities are no longer comprehensively covered by the authority.

Contact NSW State Archives and Records to discuss before undertaking any substantial review or redrafting of the authority. 

Recordings are records of your organisation’s business activities and decisions about how long to keep them for must be based on how they are used by your organisation.

If your organisation uses recordings to support short term customer service objectives and to monitor service standards, they only need to be kept for as long as this business need exists – probably a few months. There are specific references to these types of records in the General retention and disposal authority: administrative records and the General retention and disposal authority: local government records.

Local government often records meetings of Council to assist in the compilation of minutes - these are covered in the General retention and disposal authority: local government records.

More significant recordings might need to be retained much longer, depending on your organisation’s business needs for them. For example, emergency services call recordings have different retention requirements depending on the agency, the nature of the incident, and whether or not they may be required as evidence. The functional retention and disposal authority for your agency should be checked.

We have recently been asked about the disposal of audio-visual recordings of job interviews. These recordings can be treated as working papers that can be disposed of under the Normal Administrative Practice provisions of the State Records Regulation, as they are primarily facilitative and the retention of the final version of a record is sufficient to meet the recordkeeping requirements of a public office. The final version of the record would be the report of the interview panel which must be retained for a minimum of 2 years after recruitment is finalised under the General retention and disposal authority: administrative records (GA28, 15.10.1). NAP covers audio recordings of conferences and meetings used to prepare correspondence, papers, minutes and transcripts etc. Other examples we have been asked about include audio visual recordings of children used to prepare clinical notes.

For further advice see our Future Proof blog.

An ‘official record’ is a record made or received by an agency in the conduct of its business. According to this definition, drafts are records.

However, drafts do not always need to be kept. NSW State Archives and Records advises that drafts should be kept when there is an identified recordkeeping requirement to retain them because they document significant decisions, reasons and actions or contain significant information that is not contained in the final form of the document, or both.

For further advice see our Future Proof blog.

The State Records Act provides a number of means to lawfully dispose of State records. Mostly this is through retention and disposal authorities. Another means is in accordance with the normal administrative practice provisions of the Act which allow for the disposal of certain types of facilitative and duplicate records. See NSW State Archives and Records' Normal administrative practice guidelines for more information.

Email messages sent and received in the course of official business are State records under the State Records Act 1998 (the Act). This includes messages sent and received by Ministers in the course of their official duties. It also includes messages relating to any aspect of official (government) business coming from private email accounts.

The Act defines a record as ‘any document or other source of information compiled, recorded or stored in written form or on film, or by electronic process, or in any other manner or by any other means’ (s.3).

The Act goes on to define a State record as ‘any record made and kept, or received and kept, by any person in the course of the exercise of official functions in a public office, or for any purpose of a public office, or for the use of a public office’ (s.3).

The definition of a public office includes Ministers (s.3).

The Act purposely uses a broad definition for what constitutes a record. This ensures that different formats that come into use as a result of new technologies are governed by the Act. NSW public offices, including Ministers, should have policies and procedures in place to ensure that the records they create and receive, in whatever format, are managed appropriately.

If a text message is created or received in the course of official business it is a State record and needs to be managed appropriately.

The State Records Act 1998 (the Act) defines a record as ‘any document or other source of information compiled, recorded or stored in written form or on film, or by electronic process, or in any other manner or by any other means’ (s.3).

The Act goes on to define a State record as ‘any record made and kept, or received and kept, by any person in the course of the exercise of official functions in a public office, or for any purpose of a public office, or for the use of a public office’ (s.3).

The Act uses a broad definition for what constitutes a record. This ensures that different formats that come into use as a result of new technologies are governed by the Act.

The State Records Regulation 2015 (‘the Regulations’) prescribes guidelines on normal administrative practice.

Part 8 of Schedule 2 of the Regulations addresses SMS (short message service) messages, commonly referred to as text messages. It states:

Schedule 2 Guidelines on what constitutes normal administrative practice

Part 8 Messages

20 Definition of ‘messages’

In this Part:

messages includes messages in the form of e-mail, voice mail, SMS (short message service) messages, instant messages, facsimiles, telephone messages, transmission reports or similar records.

21 Messages that must not be disposed of

Messages that must not be disposed of are those that are identified as having continuing value.

22 Messages that may be disposed of

Messages that may be disposed of are:

(a) those that are ephemeral, or

(b) those of which a copy has been placed on the relevant file or captured in an appropriate way within a public office record-keeping system.

The terms ‘continuing value’ and ‘ephemeral’ are also defined in the Regulations at Part1, Schedule 2:

continuing value, in respect to records, means records that have administrative, business, fiscal, legal, evidential or historic value to the public office.

ephemeral, in respect to records, means records of little value that only need to be kept for a limited or short period of time. Records that are ephemeral have no continuing value to the public office and, generally, are only needed for a few hours or a few days.

You should assess continuing value based on the information contained in the text message and the context in which it was sent or received. It should not be assessed based on the format of the record itself. A robust normal administrative practice policy or policy on managing messages will help clarify responsibilities to staff.

Text messages need to be managed in the same way you manage other business records. They should be captured, maintained and disposed of in accordance with their business value. If a text message has continuing value, you should capture it and store it in a recordkeeping system as soon as practicable. There are third party products that can help you to do this.

When you move text messages from your phone into a recordkeeping system, consider what metadata you might need to create or retain to ensure the records’ authenticity and integrity.

No. In line with the NSW Treasury Annual Report Compliance Checklist, agencies should no longer send paper or digital copies of their annual reports to State Records.

Instead, agencies should upload their annual reports directly to OpenGov NSW.

OpenGov NSW is a searchable online repository for information published by NSW Government agencies, including annual reports and open access information released under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA Act). By improving the accessibility of published government information, OpenGov NSW supports accountability and makes it easier for citizens to interact with government. Government agencies benefit by having a permanent online repository for annual reports and other published information, allowing them to focus the content of their websites on core services and business priorities. Agencies can integrate their websites with OpenGov NSW by creating links to their publications on the site or by using its public API (application programming interface) to develop custom widgets such as lists of publications or embedded search bars.

Uploading annual reports to OpenGov NSW also satisfies the requirements of the General retention and disposal authority: administrative records (GA28) and the General retention and disposal authority: local government records (GA39) that annual reports are required as State archives.

For more information on how to upload annual reports go to www.opengov.nsw.gov.au/main.